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Swaeft's Snaps

Random Ramblings

Hello Everybody!

Do you like pausing the game every five seconds to take the perfect screenshot? Do you set your graphic settings to max or ultra even if your PC can't take it? Do you love to stare at beautiful, picturesque screenshots for hours on end?

If no, then this is the place for you, because you don't need to do those things, I will!

If yes, then this is also the place for you, because who doesn't love more screenies?

Welcome one and all, to Swaeft's Snaps, a repository of...oh sod it, I can't be bothered to think of an intro worthy of a creative writing entry, I just wanted to create a place to store all my screenshots and weekly competition submissions. Here, you can find my entries in the various competitions: Game Picture of the Week, Picture of the Week, Unedited Screenshot of the Week, and the rest of the trash that didn't make it to any of those three. Did I say trash? Err I meant other photos...yes. Enjoy! (Actually it's more for my own enjoyment, I can guarantee that at least 95% of the views will be from me, LOL)

How I Edit My Photos

A little note on my editing style: I usually increase the contrast and deepen the image, then very slightly increase the saturation before adjusting color levels. That is what I mean by basic level of editing, and I usually subject all my photos to at least this level of editing, which is also why I don't always submit for the UESW. For the more advanced stuff I usually utilize motion blur, tilt shifts and some bloom if I feel it helps accentuate the photos' features.

The Log of Changes

Change Log

If I add anything significant, I'll post it here. Adding GPOTW, POTW and UESW photos don't count, cos I do that every week, except for UESW which I may or may not enter (because I edit most of my screenies on a basic level). I'm thinking of adding my AAR photos under another album soon, though.

(10/8/19) Shifted the 'Pictures Sorted by Game' to the 3rd post in this page since each post has a 100 photos limit. Added 10 pictures from TERA Online.

(5/8/19) Finally got to organizing the screenshots by game. Will slowly add them bit by bit.

(18/3/19) Added some funny-ish FIFA clips.

(25/2/19) Damn, video making is hard work. Added my second video, again on Anthem.

(9/2/19) Added my first video! Thank you Anthem Open Demo

(10/1/19) Converted the GPOTW, POTW and UESW from imgur hosted images to TWC Album images. Thanks Alwyn for the guide. Man that took a while.

(6/1/19) Added the posters and signatures section. Still thinking about that potential Skyrim album.

(4/1/19) Added game titles to the GPOTW entries album at the request of Kilo11, and a little note on how I edit my photos in a new section 'How I Edit My Photos' which may expand as I continue to learn.

Pictures Sorted by Each Week's Competitions

Game Picture of the Week Entries

GPOTW 98 (Sins of a Solar Empire)

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GPOTW 99 (Dragon Age Origins)

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GPOTW 100 (Dragon Age Origins)

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GPOTW 101 (Risen)

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GPOTW 102 (Watch Dogs)

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GPOTW 103 (Sins of a Solar Empire)

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GPOTW 104 (Destiny 2)

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GPOTW 105 (Destiny 2)

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GPOTW 106 (Tomb Raider)

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GPOTW 107 (Watch Dogs)

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GPOTW 108 (Destiny 2)

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GPOTW 109 (Tomb Raider)

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GPOTW 110 (Destiny 2)

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GPOTW 111 (Destiny 2)

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GPOTW 112 (Anthem Open Demo)

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GPOTW 113 (Mad Max)

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GPOTW 114 (Anthem Open Demo)

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GPOTW 115 (Rise of the Tomb Raider)

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GPOTW 116 (Battlefield 1)

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GPOTW 117 (TERA Online)

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GPOTW 118 (Battlefield 1)

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GPOTW 119 (Anthem)

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GPOTW 120 (Mad Max)

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GPOTW 121 (Mass Effect Andromeda)

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GPOTW 122 (Destiny 2)

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GPOTW 123 (Rise of the Tomb Raider)

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GPOTW 124 (Mad Max)

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GPOTW 125 (Anthem)

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GPOTW 126 (Mass Effect Andromeda)

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GPOTW 127 (Battlefield 1)

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GPOTW 128 (TERA Online)

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GPOTW 129 (Perfect World International)

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GPOTW 130 (Sins of a Solar Empire)

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GPOTW 131 (Destiny 2)

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GPOTW 132 (Rise of the Tomb Raider)

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GPOTW 133 (Destiny 2)

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GPOTW 134 (Anthem)

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GPOTW 135 (Perfect World International)

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GPOTW 136 (Dragon Age Origins)

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GPOTW 137 (Watch Dogs)

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GPOTW 138 (Batman Arkham Knight)

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GPOTW 139 (Destiny 2)

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GPOTW 140 (Warframe)

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GPOTW 141 (Mass Effect Andromeda)

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GPOTW 142 (Anthem)

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GPOTW 143 (Destiny 2)

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GPOTW 144 (Destiny 2)

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GPOTW 145 (Watch Dogs)

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GPOTW 146 (Perfect World International)

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GPOTW 147 (Watch Dogs)

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GPOTW 148 (Anthem)

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Picture of the Week Entries

POTW 539 (Shogun 2)

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POTW 540(Shogun 2)

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POTW 541 (Shogun 2)

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POTW 542 (Shogun 2)

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POTW 543 (Shogun 2)

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POTW 544 (Shogun 2)

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POTW 545 (Shogun 2)

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POTW 546 (Shogun 2)

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POTW 547 (Shogun 2)

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POTW 548 (Shogun 2)

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POTW 549 (Shogun 2)

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POTW 550 (Shogun 2)

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POTW 551 (Shogun 2)

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POTW 552 (Shogun 2)

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POTW 553 (Shogun 2)

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POTW 554 (Shogun 2)

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POTW 555 (Shogun 2)

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POTW 557 (Shogun 2)

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POTW 558 (Shogun 2)

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POTW 559 (Shogun 2)

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POTW 560 (Shogun 2)

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POTW 561 (Napoleon Total War)

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POTW 562 (Napoleon Total War)

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POTW 563 (Napoleon Total War)

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POTW 564 (Napoleon Total War)

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POTW 565 (Napoleon Total War)

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POTW 566 (Napoleon Total War)

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POTW 567 (Napoleon Total War)

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POTW 568 (Napoleon Total War)

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POTW 569 (Shogun 2)

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POTW 570 (Napoleon Total War)

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POTW 571 (Napoleon Total War)

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POTW 572 (Napoleon Total War)

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POTW 573 (Napoleon Total War)

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POTW 577 (Napoleon Total War)

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POTW 585 (Napoleon Total War)

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POTW 586 (Shogun 2)

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POTW 587 (Napoleon Total War)

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Pictures Sorted by GameThese pictures are in the third post and fifth post on this page (scroll down!) due to a 100 image limit per post.

Posters and Signatures

God's Justice AAR 1st Signature

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God's Justice AAR OP Poster

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Fractured Dragon AAR Promotional Poster

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Fractured Dragon AAR 1st Signature

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Fractured Dragon AAR 2nd Signature

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Fractured Dragon AAR OP Poster

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Current Featured Video:

Anthem - The Beautiful World of Anthem

Previous videos

Anthem - The Environment

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Anthem Open Demo - 5 minutes of mostly flying around

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Shorter Videos

FIFA 19 BS and Lmaos

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All you need to do now is sit back, relax, and enjoy the screenshots! No comments necessary, this is more of a place for me to just dump everything after all, though they are always appreciated and I'll always respond. Have a good one!

Re: Swaeft's Snaps

Nice shots Swaeft, lets see how long it takes you to get your gold medal =P You're already at bronze (as soon as Hex do the admin-y stuff).

Somebody needs to defeat Diocle's Legions in battle if there is ever a chance of that happening.

Originally Posted by Admiral Van Tromp

Really nice work! I especially like the Shogun 2 POTW submissions. The night sea battles and the one from POTW 546 are amazing!

Thank you! Those are my favourite too! I love sea battles.

Originally Posted by San Felipe

Thank you for your comment on my thread, I seriously like your Shogun 2 screenshots. Years I've tried to get those storylike shots and I've flopped with it.

Shogun 2 is a very hard game to get screenshots with.

No problem, I am a simple man, I see good photos, I like them. Thank you! I agree that Shogun 2 is a hard game to get good screenshots. Have you tried the naval battles? You can't even control what angle you zoom with if you use the closeup feature. Sometimes it's really luck man.

I actually have Rome 2 and Napoleon and Medieval 2 (is my Total War fanboying showing now?) but I don't have enough disk space to install them all (curse you Destiny 2 and your 85GB, which I bet 70GB is full of DLC stuff that I can't play). Also I have only been playing Shogun 2 lately cos I'm doing a legendary campaign, but I might quit that soon and go to Rome or Napoleon. You can't take screenshots on legendary! When you pause the game that menu comes up. Oh well.

Re: Swaeft's Snaps

Aye, your Shogun 2 shots are great! Without being able to hide the UI getting good screens in Medieval 2 (Which I play the most, and submit the most) is hard, a lot of cropping has to be done, which means they won
t do as well. As for space, well...

Re: Swaeft's Snaps

Originally Posted by Swaeft

No problem, I am a simple man, I see good photos, I like them. Thank you! I agree that Shogun 2 is a hard game to get good screenshots. Have you tried the naval battles? You can't even control what angle you zoom with if you use the closeup feature. Sometimes it's really luck man.

I actually have Rome 2 and Napoleon and Medieval 2 (is my Total War fanboying showing now?) but I don't have enough disk space to install them all (curse you Destiny 2 and your 85GB, which I bet 70GB is full of DLC stuff that I can't play). Also I have only been playing Shogun 2 lately cos I'm doing a legendary campaign, but I might quit that soon and go to Rome or Napoleon. You can't take screenshots on legendary! When you pause the game that menu comes up. Oh well.

I have but they're too hard, you either need a good mod or something to get it right with Shogun 2.

All are great games.

You can't? How odd.

I used to play loads of Shogun 2 but somehow the motivation just went kapoot. Maybe somewhere I'll be playing again.

Re: Swaeft's Snaps

Originally Posted by King Athelstan

Aye, your Shogun 2 shots are great! Without being able to hide the UI getting good screens in Medieval 2 (Which I play the most, and submit the most) is hard, a lot of cropping has to be done, which means they won
t do as well. As for space, well...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Keep your great screens up!

Whoa, how is that even possible! I swear you are hiding VOTM material somewhere in there, M2TW is 30GB at most. I refuse to believe you have 200GB of screenshots! That being said, you have some sick disk space to begin with. Nice rig! And thanks for the compliments!

Originally Posted by San Felipe

I have but they're too hard, you either need a good mod or something to get it right with Shogun 2.

All are great games.

You can't? How odd.

I used to play loads of Shogun 2 but somehow the motivation just went kapoot. Maybe somewhere I'll be playing again.

Yeah, I use Darthmod, it really helps. And I agree, all are great games...but some are greater than others...I'm looking at you, Napoleon!

Also, I should have made this clearer the first time, but the zoom function I was referring to was the insert key when you select a unit in Shogun 2 in battle. It zooms you in to two different perspectives randomly preset on ships, and for land units it takes you to a perspective where a soldier is looking forwards. On land you can cycle between all the soldiers in a unit, but at sea you're stuck with the two preset zoom perspectives. Really annoying, and my POTW 543 submission was restricted by that.

I also agree that if you play too much of a game, you'll get burnout. I like to cycle my games, when I stick with something it usually lasts for 3 or so months, then I change to another, and the cycle repeats. Not when I'm writing an AAR though!

Re: Swaeft's Snaps

Originally Posted by Swaeft

I also agree that if you play too much of a game, you'll get burnout. I like to cycle my games, when I stick with something it usually lasts for 3 or so months, then I change to another, and the cycle repeats. Not when I'm writing an AAR though!

When doing an AAR I presume you play for content in the AAR, not just for the game itself, and thus you play the game the same way and therefore not get burned out. Same with, per say multiplayer campaigns, I've spent an ungodly amount of hours the past two weeks on a Warhammer II Coop- If singleplayer I would probably be bored a long time ago, but with a friend it's quite a lot of fun. It's all about perspective

And thanks for the compliments on my rig, I've spent quite some time over the years upgrading it. Especially my monitor I'm proud of, it costed almost as much as I spent on the pc itself. I suspect some of my Med 2 entries ' edits look better there than on other screens if one looks at the results

Re: Swaeft's Snaps

Originally Posted by King Athelstan

When doing an AAR I presume you play for content in the AAR, not just for the game itself, and thus you play the game the same way and therefore not get burned out. Same with, per say multiplayer campaigns, I've spent an ungodly amount of hours the past two weeks on a Warhammer II Coop- If singleplayer I would probably be bored a long time ago, but with a friend it's quite a lot of fun. It's all about perspective

And thanks for the compliments on my rig, I've spent quite some time over the years upgrading it. Especially my monitor I'm proud of, it costed almost as much as I spent on the pc itself. I suspect some of my Med 2 entries ' edits look better there than on other screens if one looks at the results

Aye, that's what I mean. Everything's more fun with friends, I can't play Left 4 dead on my own now can I? Yeah about your rig, I'm still jealous, so I'm not going to say too much. Though that is one costly monitor if it costs the same as your PC

Re: Swaeft's Snaps

You've got some tight screenshots here Swaeft! Now I feel really rude toward you for including basically zero screenies in my AAR. It must be killing you (to be clear, that's a sad violin, and not a jolly Irish fellow playing a jig). But rest assured, I will start popping ones in, courtesy of Skotos, using the super sharp images he offered to provide.

One suggestion/request about your library here: would you mind putting a very brief (like 2-5 words) caption for each picture, saying what it's from? For the TW games, it's easy to guess, but there are some others in there that look really cool, that I find myself wanting, needing, but I don't know what they are...

Re: Swaeft's Snaps

Originally Posted by Kilo11

You've got some tight screenshots here Swaeft! Now I feel really rude toward you for including basically zero screenies in my AAR. It must be killing you (to be clear, that's a sad violin, and not a jolly Irish fellow playing a jig). But rest assured, I will start popping ones in, courtesy of Skotos, using the super sharp images he offered to provide.

One suggestion/request about your library here: would you mind putting a very brief (like 2-5 words) caption for each picture, saying what it's from? For the TW games, it's easy to guess, but there are some others in there that look really cool, that I find myself wanting, needing, but I don't know what they are...

Haha hey, I would never dare to impose my will on other AARtists, so feel free to continue the way you have been going! *mutters under my breath* seems like a goddamn happy fellow playing the violin...

Oh and thanks for the suggestion. I've been doing that in the GPOTW competition, but I neglected to do it here. What would I do without you, Kilo11?

Originally Posted by King Athelstan

Damn, and still getting those quality screenshots? What fps do you get, or should I say frames per hour?

Don't you mean frames per day? I change the settings to ultra or its equivalent in the various games when I want to take a screenshot, but it's stationary so the FPS doesn't matter. My brother has a better rig than mine, and I play Skyrim and Destiny 2 on that, but only when he's not using it I'll go look over the specs soon and post it here if you want. By the way, what are you rocking?

Re: Swaeft's Snaps

Ah, I've upgraded mine over the years, by a fine mix of buying used parts, selling old ones and getting bargains/RAM as Christmas presents.

I started out with an i5 650, a gtx 460 and 4GB RAM powered by some 450w bronze PSU in a Fractal Design Define R4 and a cheap Packard Bell 24" monitor from 2010
Today I have an i7 4790, 16GB of 1666mhz RAM, a GTX 1070 powered by a 750w EVGA Supernove G3 gold PSU. The HDD and the OG SS You saw in the earlier pic I had from the start, the rest were added later. Of the original build (that I did buy used) only the SSD, HDD and case remain. Everything else has been switched out at least twice.
My current monitor is a 27" 1440p 144hz IPS G-Sync one, an Acer Predator XB271HU if I remember correctly. Seeing it side by side with my old monitor the change is massive, even by looking at the brown TWC background. Well worth the money!

Re: Swaeft's Snaps

It's a budget due to price, not specs. I got the mobo, cpu and 8 gigs of ram for 140 euros, the PSU amd SSds one 40ish % off, and the gpu one sale plus cashback, so I spent 300ish euros on it. The monitor was only on 15% sale, but I had spent a long time saving up. I use my computer a lot and I'm quite into tech (Check the basement). So while it is high-end, I've spent maybe half price of what everything would cost new